Thursday, May 31, 2012

I finally saw The Avengers yesterday, and, as expected, it blew my shorts off. Seriously great film... if you haven't seen it, do it now! If you have seen it, go see it again!

I saw a while back that Hasbro was going to be putting out a series of Walmart Exclusive Marvel Legends (1:12 scale or 6 inch scale) figures to coincide with the release of the film. Knowing that the toys would be hard to find and cost an arm and a leg, I tried to narrow it down to just one figure I wanted from the line... and naturally that one figure was the Hulk. With me, it's always the Hulk.

I knew these would be beast to find, but I was fortunate to have one of the luckiest toy spotters I have ever met as a friend, and he picked one up for me the other day. Thanks, Eric!!!

Toys have been going up and up on prices-- just in case you hadn't noticed (I bet you have!). I can remember just a few years ago when a Marvel Legends figure was around 10 bucks and was so sturdy and heavy you could beat an elephant to death with one. Times have changed. These Avengers figures cost $15.99. I can understand why things are going up... but my issues are with the fact that it seems Hasbro is skimping on quality at that heightened price. I'll get into that in a bit. Here are some pics and my thoughts about the Incredible Hulk figure from this line. Click any of the thumbnails to see bigger pics:

First of all, let me say it right up front: this is a gorgeous toy. It looks fantastic and is quite poseable. The colors they used are nice... not as dark as the smaller scaled figures that have been popping up for a while. Hulk has a nice olive green color, and the few paint apps that are here are done really well. It's pretty obvious that this isn't an "on model" depiction of the movie Hulk. I'd go so far as to say that the body style on this figure is closer to the Ed Norton Hulk than the Mark Ruffalo version. It's very lean and wiry in comparison to the thick, ape-like Hulk in The Avengers. With a little work he can be posed in the hunched over stance that the Hulk in The Avengers usually held, but it's pretty obvious that it's just not quite accurate. I don't really care, because the figure looks so darn good.

The poseability is great! They used a little bit better hip joints than some other recent Hasbro figures in this scale, but they're still a little bit of a pain in the rump to work with. The good thing is that the joints are ratcheted, so they'll hold a pose quite well. One really nice thing is the addition of rocker joints in the heels that allow the foot to tilt to the sides. This allows for a lot of really dynamic wide-legged stances.

The Hulk has around 30 points of articulation, which is very welcome! Some of the joints don't have a great range because of the bulk of the figure, but they work well enough.

The head sculpt is really impressive... it doesn't look 100% like the face of the Hulk in the film, but it's a nice Hulk sculpt nonetheless. You can see a bit of Mark Ruffalo in there if you turn it just right.

So how does the Hulk stack up to other figures size-wise? He's really freaking tall, for starters. Although he's a lot leaner than the Toybiz Face-Offs Hulk and a bit more muscular than the Toy Biz First Appearance Hulk, he seems to fit right in with figures in this scale. This new Hulk is the tallest Marvel Legends scale Hulk I own right now just edging out the Face-Offs Hulk by a smidge.

As you can see, this Hulk towers over smaller scaled figures. This 3 inch Glyos figure barely makes it past Hulk's knee!

Might want to be careful about your next few words, Thor.

And here's the Hulk with the older movie Hulk figure that was scaled to fit with 1:18th scale figures. Kinda neat how different and yet similar the two movie figures are.

So there you have some thoughts-- the pros mostly. So what's my beef with the figure?

Quality. The figure looks great-- no arguments there-- but the problem is that the figure just feels cheap. It's made with an extremely lightweight plastic, and seems a lot lighter than it should be. That's not really a huge deal, but I do kind of worry that the hollow parts will be more prone to breakage. Again, not a big deal, because I treat my toys extremely well, but it's kinda crappy when a toy company raises prices and skimps on quality. Along with that issue is the issue of the flimsy joints. The elbow and knee joints are made of really rubbery, flexible plastic. It's so flimsy feeling that you can shake the figure and watch the limbs wobble. Again.. not a huge issue, as I don't really play with my figures anymore, but it is an issue when we're paying more for something that is less than top quality.

So... overall: I really like this figure. It suits my purposes quite well; he makes a fine addition to my growing Hulk collection! He's excellently sculpted and satisfyingly poseable. I'm not sure if the other figures in this line have the same wimpy joints or not, but it's a bit of an issue with this figure, so I think it's only fair to warn you folks who play with your figures a lot. I don't think they'll fall apart in your hands or anything, but I wonder how prone they are to stretching.

Was the figure worth buying? Yes, indeedy! It's not a 100% faithful interpretation of the movie Hulk, but it's VERY faithful to the spirit of the character.